Seventeen Widows of Sans Souci

by Charlotte Armstrong

  So many of the widows had such meager personal mail—he disliked having to put so little into their eager hands.

  Personal mail was not all of the same quality either. Harriet Gregory’s for instance was perfectly constant. Always the two typewritten airmail envelopes, very thin, exactly two weeks apart.

  Mrs. Buff’s mail was rich and full. She received many real letters, addressed in dainty hands, sprawling hands, sometimes with the address straggling uphill, having been printed crookedly in pencil by a child.

  Tess Rogan’s mail was of this same quality, as Nona Henry was able to perceive.

  Then, Tess had many long-distance phone calls. Impatient voices. Asking for something. A call from New York. “Now, Tess, please! You write to him. He’ll listen to you …” (Nona couldn’t help hearing this particular loud pleading.)

  “Kate, dearie,I will not write to him. It is none of my business,” Tess had said.

  She told Nona that the voice had belonged to “Liam’s wife, Kate.”

  “Liam is your son?”

  “Not this one. This is my son Hal’s oldest son.”

  Nona could not disentangle them all. But she was impressed. “Liam was your husband’s name?”

  “It was,” Tess said. “God bless him.”

  They were on good terms, easy terms.

  So now Nona frowned at the news of the exclusion of Tess Rogan from Georgia’s surprise party. But before she could protest or, indeed, decide whether she ought to protest to the Gadabouts, along came Mrs. Fitz and Georgia herself. The subject of the party of course had to be dropped, with an enjoyable display of false innocence by all.

  Nona went on upstairs. Was it her duty to urge that her house guest be invited? Was it her duty to say that she herself could not otherwise attend? Or, since Tess was only her guest by accident, was this something to be let alone and none of Nona’s business?

  She wasn’t sure, but it occurred to her that she could ask Tess about it. And this was remarkable, really. Yet, if Tess were in the apartment now, that was exactly what Nona was about to do.

  Musing, she opened her door with her key and there he was!

  “Why, Dane! Dane Mercier! For heaven’s sakes!”

  He was her other son-in-law, Milly’s husband, from Seattle.

  Nona embraced him. “Where did you come from?”

  “I had to fly down on business,” he explained, “and I thought I’d drop by and surprise you. How are you, Mum?”

  “Oh, fine! Oh, Tess—Mrs. Rogan, this is my—”

  “We’ve introduced ourselves,” Dane said. “We know all about each other.” He was a thin dark-haired man of thirty-four. He looked well, or at least as well as his thin tension ever permitted.

  Tess Rogan got up from the sofa and smilingly excused herself. She disappeared into the bedroom.

  “Oh, Dane, sit down and tell me about small Milly.”

  “I’ve brought you some snapshots,” he said.

  Nona was pleased, in fact quite touched. She pressed him to stay for dinner. But Dane said that he had a plane to catch at six. “I wanted to see you especially, Mum. Si writes me …”

  “Si?”

  “He didn’t want this to go through Dodie. It seems he’s afraid you are mad at him.”

  “Well, for goodness’ sakes!”

  “Now, he borrowed money from Dad, didn’t he?” Dane’s dark brows were taking this seriously and no pretty exclamation was going to turn aside what he had come to say. “I mean when Dad was so ill?”

  Nona looked down at her hands. She didn’t know how grim her face had become. “Some bonds,” she said vaguely.

  “Dad had promised them to him,” Dane said urgently. “Si’s afraid you don’t really believe that. He feels pretty terrible, Mum. He asked me to talk to you … wanted me to try to make you see … He never—”

  “But I do see,” Nona proclaimed. Her voice went sweetly false; she could hear as much herself. “My dear, I haven’t said one word to the contrary.”

  “Well, just the same he feels that you … He knows Dodie is unhappy. Tell me, why did you pack up and come out here so suddenly?”

  Nona didn’t answer.

  “Why didn’t you come to us, Mum? I wrote you and begged you …”

  “Oh, Dane, now, please, don’t you feel hurt.” (My two sons-in-law, hurt … I am important! Nona caught her mind at what it was doing and rebuked it.) “It’s just that I needed to be by myself a little while,” she said. (Who had said that?)

  “Well, we’d like to have you.” He’d relaxed a little, and now smiled. “Connie really wants you.” (Connie was his new wife.) “Connie is crazy about small Milly. Don’t you think Connie wants Milly to know her very own grandmother?”

  “Well, of course,” soothed Nona, “and I will come, Dane. Thank you. I don’t know when. I’ll have to see …”

  “Good.” He smiled fondly. “Milly talks about you all the time, you know.”

  “Ah, does she?” Nona felt quite melted, wanted, desirable.

  “I hope you feel O.K. about Silas, though,” Dane reverted.

  “Why, of course I do.” There rang that sweetness, and she could not control it.

  “Well, I’ll write Si I’ve seen you.”

  “Please.” No use going on. She had protested as well as she could, and could do no better.

  “Look,” said Dane. “He says that if he’d had any idea, he’d never have done what they did. He’s … well, he’s upset and he’s sorry. He hates having Dodie feel … you know, guilty about it. But he can’t get the money out of the business, right now. He’s just getting nicely started. Everything’s O.K. and the interest is being paid …”

  “Yes, I know that, dear,” said Nona.

  “Dad never did speak of this loan to you?” Dane asked.

  “Why no,” she said. “No, Val didn’t. But I understand. And don’t worry about it, Dane, please.” Nona was trying very hard. “After all, Si did get the money when he needed it … and, as you say, he’s doing well. Why, then I’m happy about it, of course.”

  But Dane’s dark eyes kept upon her doubtfully. He said, “That’s good,” rather woodenly. He kissed her cheek. “You’ll come see us soon?”

  “Oh, I will.”

  “I’ve got to run. Oh say, what’s your—Mrs. Rogan?”

  Nona called out, “Tess?”

  Tess answered from afar.

  “Dane’s going.”

  Tess put her head out of the bedroom door.

  Dane Mercier said to her, with a smile that illuminated his rather dour good looks, “Thanks for talking to me. Look, I wish you’d try and talk to her.” He squeezed Nona’s shoulders. “Good-by, Mum. See you soon, don’t forget.”

  He was gone.

  Nona closed the door and looked at Tess Rogan. “Oh, you talked to him?” she said thinly.

  “He was waiting for you a good while,” Tess said.

  “I suppose he told you about my affairs?”

  “He was troubled,” Tess said gently.

  “And what is your advice in this matter?” said Nona, holding her head far back. Her eyes glittered.

  “No advice,” said Tess softly. “Your affairs.”

  “Yes.”

  Tess stood still and said nothing. Made no promise, no apology.

  Nona broke out of her pose. “Well, I’ll go start supper,” she said with an angry snap.

  She marched around the half-wall and into the kitchen. She was very angry. Or, if not angry, then hurt. She did not like to think that Dane and Tess Rogan had been discussing Nona and Nona’s private problems. She blamed Dane for talking. She blamed Tess for listening. She felt alienated and cold. (And afraid.)

  She said nothing about the shower for Georgia Oliver. Nona had been invited. It was her affair. She would simply go to the party and have fun.

  Chapter 15

  Bettina Goodenough’s apartment held the wasp hum of a swarm of females “enjoying” themselves.

  Nona
Henry balanced her plate and caught and threw eyebeams and gave out little cries as often as anyone. But she wasn’t really enjoying herself or the party.

  In the first place, she was quite sure that Georgia Oliver had not been surprised. Georgia had gone meekly where Nona took her in the late morning. But in her very air of riding passively on the tides of time, there was a mischievous and … oh, loving! … condescension. Have your little fun, do, Georgia seemed to say, you funny dears.

  She hadn’t even pretended much surprise. Just Georgia’s usual praise. She had opened packages and cooed and cried, all with that tolerant undercurrent that in some way belittled everything she made much of, for she made just as much of the box of somewhat shopworn doilies from Agnes Vaughn as she did of the beautiful black-and-silver salad servers that Caroline Buff had sent (with such a sweet note!).

  Caroline Buff had not been able to appear, herself, because of a previous engagement.

  Since everyone else who had been expected actually came (excepting only Elna Ames), the luncheon for so many was served buffet style. Under Sarah Lee Cunneen’s supervision, the table was beautifully arranged, immaculate and charming, and the food, every bit, was dainty and delectable.

  Sarah Lee, however, seemed compelled to knock down the refinement that she had with real skill achieved. “How about some of this goop?” she had kept crying, in her vulgar way, or “This salad’s a little weird but it wouldn’t kill you!”

  Bettina had kept laughing while the ladies served themselves.

  When somebody had chirruped at Felice Paull and caused her big body to turn toward the table, Nona Henry had slipped backward in the line so as to put others between. Felice Paull had tried, upon meeting Nona face-to-face for the first time, to pin her down on the subject of Community Service. Didn’t Nona think that women needed an outlet for a natural feminine impulse toward benevolence and charity, and good works? Had Nona ever worked for the Heart Drive? When Nona murmured something about the Red Cross, Mrs. Paull’s huge eyes had moistened. She had explained that the local Red Cross was in hopeless condition, badly mismanaged. Felice would not actually accuse them of fraud—but confusion and negligence was almost as bad, didn’t Nona agree? Furthermore, Felice, doing her best to remedy these glaring and deplorable weaknesses, had run into a political clique there which had prevailed and actually forced Felice to drop the whole connection. Her lawyer …

  “Come on, Felice. You know you’re hungry,” Agnes Vaughn had nudged and spoken.

  “Listen!” shouted Sarah Lee. “Take a lot! Take two!” Her face shone with perspiration and kindness.

  Felice Paull had taken a lot. She was a large woman. Yet Agnes Vaughn who stood five foot two had taken just as much.

  Now, eating daintily, Nona found that her whole mood had turned a little cynical, her eye jaundiced, her ear sour.

  The ten women, seated more or less in a circle now, had become one group and Nona noted that the center of the party was not Georgia Oliver. It was Mrs. Fitz. Of course Georgia, as usual, deferred to her. And the delicate little old lady, as usual, was exercising her gentling influence so that even the Unholy Three were (comparatively) holy in her presence. But was it necessary, Nona thought, for all ten women to talk about Mrs. Fitz’s wonderful son Robert, Mrs. Fitz’s wonderful husband Samuel, the judge, and Mrs. Fitz’s equally wonderful elder son, and Mrs. Fitz’s completely happy and ideal life situation?

  What is the matter with me? Nona wondered.

  Is it the devil? Or is it Tess Rogan?

  Tess Rogan was still occupying Nona’s other bed. The barrier of Nona’s anger had worn away—perhaps because there had always been a separating membrane, very delicate and very strong, which endured. Whatever too much Tess Rogan knew about Nona’s affairs, there had been no comment made, no advice given, no push and no apology. The two of them came and went as lightly and as freely as before. How could anger exist?

  Today Nona had come here, and where Tess was or what she was doing Nona did not even know. Nothing had been said about the exclusion of Tess Rogan from this shower for Georgia Oliver. But now in the midst of the affair Nona began to wonder who had excluded her. And why?

  She doesn’t need this sort of thing, thought Nona. Maybe they sense as much. Still, Caroline Buff didn’t need this sort of thing either, and she had not been excluded. (She had had to buy herself off, thought the cynic.) Nobody else had been excluded. Even Agnes Vaughn was here. Nona’s eyes went around the circle of widows, dressed to the eyebrows, buzzing and generating such a fierce sense of importance. (What is here that I need? thought Nona O’Connor.)

  Agnes Vaughn gobbled up her second little cake and slurped her coffee. She had been subdued long enough.

  “Say, where’s your roommate, Mrs. Henry?” she shouted across ten feet of space. “Gone around the world, eh?”

  The buzz faded so that all could hear this.

  Nona said, with a smile, “She isn’t going until June.”

  “Ah, go on,” said Agnes Vaughn. “Hoo! Hoo!”

  This could have been ignored. The silly-wise bobbing of Ida Mil-bank’s head could have been ignored. The little silence would have been bridged, in a moment, by some tactful person.

  But Nona chose to speak up. “Do you mean you don’t believe she’s going?” she asked, clearly. This tore too many comfortable veils and even Agnes couldn’t get her mouth open for a moment. So Nona went on. “Why do you think Mrs. Rogan is a liar?” she asked with a sweet curiosity.

  This was war.

  Ursula Fitzgibbon tried to put her dove’s wing down. “Nona, dear,” she chided, “nobody says anything of the kind. We don’t know, do we? What a wonderful thing it is to travel! I myself have been to Europe only once!” (No one else in the room had ever been.) “Robert,” she continued, “is the traveler, of course, in my family. I have his letters from all over the world. So interesting!”

  Agnes Vaughn was looking at Nona. Her eyes wobbled as if she were peering alternately into Nona’s right eye, left eye. “I suppose she’s going to take you along?” Agnes brayed.

  Nona said, “I don’t believe her family will let her go, alone.”

  Sarah Lee said, “Listen!” explosively.

  “When Mr. Tremaine called her from Honolulu the other night,” Nona said, “he insisted on making reservations for two. Naturally he has to reserve cabin space even though he is a vice president of the line …”

  “Who is he?” asked Agnes Vaughn, bluntly.

  “Her youngest daughter’s husband,” Nona said gently.

  “You mean it’s true!” squeaked Harriet Gregory.

  “Well, the space is reserved,” said Nona, “at least as far as the Islands. They want her to stop over there. She also has a nephew in the diplomatic service at Brussels, which will be interesting too.” Nona’s smile was bright.

  “Oh, my!” said Georgia. “I should say!”

  “How delightful,” said Mrs. Fitz, “for her! And for you, Nona dear, if she takes you.”

  Bettina said stiffly, “Of course to accept such a …”

  Sarah Lee said, “Listen! An old lady’s got a right to take a companion.”

  The ladies now murmured “Of course” and smiled upon Nona Henry.

  At bay (for who would be a “companion” which is to be a servant?) Nona said as calmly and quietly as she could, “Oh, she hasn’t asked me to go.”

  “But you took her in!” cried Bettina with a beaming face. The implication was clear: You did it for this foreseeable reward, did you not? (Bettina Goodenough, so gay, so full of laughter, had a core that was forever furious.)

  Nona said smoothly, “Several people offered to take her in, as I remember.” But not you, implication retaliated.

  All this time, Agnes Vaughn was chewing the cud of reversal.

  Now Harriet Gregory cried, “Well, I’m the fool!” Her painted face was being fiercely gay. “I might have promoted myself as her companion but I thought she must be kidding. What a fool I was! Ha ha
.”

  “Ha! Ha!” echoed Bettina.

  “I don’t think you’re such a fool, Harriet,” said Agnes Vaughn suddenly. It was capricious of Agnes to be suddenly pro-Harriet but Agnes was driven to the wall. “You know that Mrs. Quinn story?”

  “Oh, yes, I was the fool!” howled Harriet. She felt she had discovered a vein here. To be a fool was to be something.

  “No, because there was a man that day. I saw him,” claimed Agnes. “And that means there is a Mrs. Quinn.”

  Mrs. Fitz looked sweetly sad. “Ah, surely …”

  “Anybody,” said Agnes Vaughn, “who thinks that Oppie Etting is capable of making up a story like that is the fool, if you ask me. He hasn’t got what it takes.”

  A sense of the truth of this filled the room.

  “Well, who is she then?” burst Sarah Lee Cunneen. “A murderess! Listen !”

  Agnes Vaughn let her teeth show. “She’s here, all right. She’s one of us.”

  Daisy Robinson had been in the room all this time, doing what the rest were doing, managing to seem merely a trifle absent-minded instead of bored to the bone as she actually was. Now Daisy’s nostrils flared. “What nonsense!” she scoffed. (Murder? For Jealousy? Daisy’s mind ran to literature.) “By the way … has any of you seen Othello?”

  Mrs. Fitz said, “I don’t get to the theatre any more. Is it well done, Daisy?”

  Felice Paull said belligerently as if she ought to have been told, “Who is doing Othello?” (Felice Paull seemed a tiny bit ashamed of Agnes Vaughn.)

  “The way to find out which one of us is Mrs. Quinn,” proclaimed Agnes, “is to eliminate, eh? It wouldn’t be an old-timer. Hoo! Hoo! Where are you from, Mrs. Henry?”

  But Nona let her head swivel gracefully. “How I’d like to have seen Othello,” she said to Daisy, “I wish I had known. Theatre used to be my passion.”

  “Well, I’d go again,” said Daisy enthusiastically.

  “But do tell us, Daisy,” said Mrs. Fitz, “who plays Iago? Years ago,” she continued (as if she, thought Nona cynically, had not really wanted to know who played Iago but rather to indicate to all present that she knew the play), “Samuel and I,” said Mrs. Fitz, “never missed anything Shakespearean that they were doing in New York. It’s a little over my head …” Mrs. Fitz said smiling adorably and Nona, reconquered, smiled back.